In today's health conscious environment, there is a need for low-fat and fat-free snack products. The United States Food & Drug Administration regulations require snack products, in particular pretzels, to contain less than 3 grams digestible fat/28 gram serving size to be classified as low-fat and less than 0.5 grams digestible fat/28 gram serving size to be classified as fat-free. Therefore, substantial reformulation is necessary in order to produce snacks that will fall within the regulations and contain consumer-acceptable taste and texture qualities.
One problem to overcome in order to produce low-fat and fat-free snack products is the reduction of fat-contributing ingredients (e.g., emulsifiers, shortening, oil, flavoring, etc.) while maintaining an acceptable taste and texture. Fats play an important role in the way a dough behaves during processing and greatly affect the quality, flavor and texture of the ready-to-eat product. As the fat content in snack products is reduced or replaced with other ingredients (e.g., non-digestible fat, protein, fiber, gums), adverse organoleptical effects (e.g., mouthcoating, drying, lack of crispness and lack of flavor) are increased. The adverse organoleptic effects result in products having reduced palatability.
Another problem to overcome is the lack of flavor display and lubriciousness often exhibited by conventional low-fat and fat-free pretzels. Typically, low-fat and fat-free pretzels are hard, have decreased flavor display, and are not as lubricious as high-fat snacks such as potato chips, cheese curls, corn chips and the like.
One approach for improving the palatability, lubriciousness, and flavor display of low-fat and fat-free snacks has been to add flavors. The flavors are traditionally applied to the snack as topical coatings in the form of dry powders (with or without a binder) and/or as liquids (e.g., oil-based, water-based). Although snacks having topical coatings comprising flavors are appetizing to consumers, there are several problems associated with snack products having these topical coatings. Several problems include: (1) the products tend to be greasy and/or messy; (2) the coatings have a tendency to leave a residue on the hands of the consumers; (3) the appearance of the product can vary from batch to batch; (4) increased drying times are needed to reduce the moisture of the product; (5) the products have poor appearance (e.g., dull, powdery); and (6) the products are mouth-drying. In addition, especially in the case of pretzels, the desirable surface sheen and color is also lost.
Another approach has been to add flavor to the dough; however, these products have poor flavor display, primarily due to the interaction between the flavor and starches in the dough composition. It is believed that the starches bind the flavor components and the flavor intensity is greatly suppressed. To complicate matters further, the strong caustic-treated surface of the pretzels prevents balanced flavor display, whether additional flavors are added to the dough and/or topically to the pretzel.
Despite these various approaches which have been taken to improve consumer appeal and palatability of low-fat and fat-free pretzels, there is still an apparent need for improved low-fat and fat-free pretzels having coatings applied thereto with the visual appeal, flavor, and texture of full-fat pretzels. In addition, processes of improved efficiency, methods of producing the pretzels, and methods of coating pretzels are also needed.
An object of the present invention is to provide dough compositions suitable for making low-fat and fat-free pretzels.
Another object of the present invention is to provide coated low-fat and fat-free pretzels.
Still another object of the present invention is to incorporate flavor in a stable glossy coating which can be applied to snack foods, such as pretzels, corn chips, potato chips, puffed products, tortilla chips and the like.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a process for preparing coated pretzels having a glossy coating.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a coating which is capable of suspending and carrying flavors for application onto the surface of snacks such as pretzels.